


Something S.P.E.C.I.A.L.

by DemyxTheMenace



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Different Types of Love, F/F, F/M, Multi, and Danse is a special snowflake, everyone loves everyone, sole has emotions and she is Not Having It
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-17
Updated: 2017-03-07
Packaged: 2018-09-25 02:57:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9799718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DemyxTheMenace/pseuds/DemyxTheMenace
Summary: Addie is an open sore. She’s the resulting chaos of a car crash. She’s broken and she’s bleeding but she covers her wounds and she makes it through the day with one name in her head.Shaun.This is the story of how Adrian, sole survivor of Vault 111 becomes the savior of the Commonwealth and everything her friends thought she could be.





	1. Bleeding

**Author's Note:**

> Alright. So. Heyy-o! I've been away from F4 and the fandom for far too long. I had an itch to write SOMETHING about my main Sole Survivor, Adrian, and this is what happened. This won't necessarily have a plot, it's just all about Adrian, all her companions and their different types of love. I have the first four parts (?) written and we'll go from there. Thanks for checking this out and happy reading.
> 
> I would also like to add that this was written at 2 am with minimal editing done so if you see something SAY SOMETHING. Please and thank you.
> 
> <3 Demmy
> 
> P.S. There is a very minor mention of suicide in the beginning. Just warning you. Super minor.

     Addie is an open sore. She’s the resulting chaos of a car crash. She’s broken and she’s bleeding but she covers her wounds and she makes it through the day with one name in her head.

     Shaun.

     She used to feel a wave of sadness hot on the heels of soul-crushing rage when she began her journey to find her son. Now she just feels…tired. A bone-deep exhaustion that aches in every muscle, shudders through every nerve. She just wants to find her son.

     “Go to Concord.” Codsworth said.

     “Try Diamond City.” Preston said.

     “Find Valentine.” Mayor McDonough said.

     All her work, all her investigations, they all point to the Institute. And from what Addie knows about the Institute…her possibility of finding Shaun alive and whole gets smaller and smaller the closer she gets. And her drive, her passion to find her missing child has slowed and finally she finds she honestly can’t remember the last time she felt anything other than grief and anger.

     There had been glimpses of joy, glimpses of hope. But they’d been crushed soon after. Addie doesn’t deserve to feel happy, to feel victorious, to feel anything other than the loss.

     She could have stopped them, she tells herself. If only she could have bypassed the door. But no, there were no inner workings to that seal she could have used to open it. Maybe if she’d pounded on the door hard enough. But no, her limbs were weak with cold and her joints ached with disuse. Maybe if she’d-.

     She runs through that moment, the moment everything had gone wrong, breaks down every possibility and comes up with everything she could have done better. It’s not much. The game was rigged from the start.

     Actually, she thinks, the moment everything had gone wrong was trusting Vault Tec. Was thinking they could have helped her family by saving them from the bombs. She should have just let them die in the blast. They could have been together at least.

     Addie can tell her companions are beginning to worry about her. She hesitates to use the word friend despite what she tells them. She doesn’t have the capacity for friendship anymore.

     Piper writes her. Jokes, information she’d dug up, stories from her youth, anything and everything that comes into her head at the time. Addie doesn’t know why but she keeps all the letters, all the tiny pieces of paper. It makes her feel more human sometimes.

     Cait fights her. Pushes her to really focus on their sparring match, takes her out of her head. Cait forces her to strategize, to think on her feet and use what little flexibility she has to wriggle out of a headlock and duck under hooks. Every drop of blood she loses is like a spark of vitality, goading her to press on, to hit harder, to move quicker.

     Curie interrogates her. Asks her about her old life and new, questions about the enemies they fight, the allies they make, about the trees, the animals, the soil. And despite the longing in her chest Addie tells her. Tells her everything she knows. Curie is the only person she can actually stand to talk to about her old life, actually. And with every tale of herself, of Nate, of…Shaun, she feels a little lighter.

     Deacon tests her. They run through endless stealth drills both in Sanctuary and in abandoned settlements, in forests, in plains, in Diamond City, everywhere. He lectures her on what she’s doing wrong and berates her on what she missed as he nips the bandana from her belt once more. She tries again and again and only once has she ever managed to sneak up on him, but she’d been particularly vicious and she’d rigged a net trap for him to stumble into and then taken his bandana right from his waist. Deacon doesn’t let her call it a victory despite his grudging acceptance of how well her plan worked. He tells her he’s worried she’s going to be plucked right from her sniper nest some time. She tells him she’s waiting for the day to come. He doesn’t smile like she thought he would.

     MacCready shoots her. They come across a pair of old world (and doesn’t that phrase sting) BB guns and Addie gets to work on them right away. She fiddles with the barrels, makes them as precise as she can make them in close quarters, and she makes sure they don’t pack quite as big of a punch. They wear thicker clothes and face-masks and run around a course MacCready sets up seeing if they can shoot each other. Of course, MacCready wins most of their games due not only to Addie being skilled more as a sniper than in close quarters but his longer experience shooting. She’s still better than almost everyone else when they ask to try, but she demands MacCready face her with another match more often than not. MacCready likes to pretend he’s annoyed when she asks but she can see the soft lilt to his lips and the way he brightens and then tries to suppress both. She pretends he’s annoyed too.

     Hancock humors her. Both with his jokes and when she asks about the Wasteland. He has a witty retort for almost anything and it reminds Addie of herself before…before. She sometimes finds the heart to crack a few of her own and the surprised smile Hancock gets makes her stomach swoop every time. He tells her of his time in Goodsprings, how it feels when he uses certain chems compared to others, his past with his brother and everything in between. She finds long nights splayed out on the roof of her new home with Hancock by her side, talking the hours away. Hancock never asks about her own life, but he listens avidly when she tells him what little she can stomach saying out loud. He doesn’t blame her when she clams up but she blames herself.

     Nick mentors her. He starts taking her on cases with him and shows her the secrets of his trade; critical thinking and where to look for evidence, signs of foul play and signs of struggle, interrogation without torture and how to phrase what you need to know. Nick doesn’t ask about her past unless it’s to compare a case to her experience. She appreciates it more than she lets on and sometimes offers up some of her own conclusions. He tells her she’s invaluable as another clever brain to bounce ideas off. She smiles and tells him she’s the Watson to his Sherlock. He smiles and agrees.

     Preston helps her. From running the Minutemen to making sure the settlements they aid and set up are safe as well as finding new colonies to integrate and protect. She wouldn’t be able to do half the work she manages to do in the Minutemen without him. He hates the term “Right hand man” but that’s what he is to her. He takes command when he needs to within the organization and reports back to her while she’s away. He takes most of the stress out of being a leader and for that she’s so grateful. He says he’s not a leader. She doesn’t tell him he’s so wrong.

     Danse…Danse confuses her. As much as he sticks with her in hopes of luring her into the Brotherhood, he does help Addie when she asks. From power armor upgrades to building houses to protecting settlements to hunting Raiders. She watches his back from her nest and makes sure no living thing gets within 5 feet of his hulking armored form. And Addie doesn’t know if it’s because he’s used to taking orders or if he really wants her in the Brotherhood or if…maybe he just wants to. She’s afraid to ask in case he just helps her without thinking about it and then she runs the risk of him realizing he does it and high-tailing it back to the Prydwen. But she also doesn’t hesitate to thank him after every little thing he does. He gets this vaguely puzzled expression like he’s never heard the words “thank you” before. She makes sure to tell him every chance she gets after she sees it.

     Codsworth cleans for her. He keeps Sanctuary in “tip top shape” while she’s gone and even stays with her to do house chores while she’s there. His old circuits aren’t as greased as they used to be and she finds him having trouble moving up and down the four-story base she’d made as part home and part Minutemen headquarters, but he still cooks and cleans and makes sure the shrubs off the side of the Tower are trimmed neatly. He maintains Sanctuary as a place to live. Addie didn’t know how much she wanted it to be a home again until he starts doing his normal butler duties. She’s still struck by the feeling of stability in this strange new world every now and again. She hires a mechanic to make sure Codsworth is kept in tip top shape after that.

     Pup cuddles her. Addie had a lot of doubts about Dogmeat in the beginning. Especially how everyone kept calling him Dogmeat. She starts referring to him as Pup and almost immediately everyone picks it up. She was horrified in the beginning because once you name something, you get attached. And she really couldn’t afford to care for a living thing, especially after the last time she cared, one of the things got murdered and the other kidnapped. But Pup sticks around, licks the blood off her shoes, plays with every teddy bear he can get his paws on, sticks his head between her legs when she starts to panic. He becomes the typical canine companion she was afraid of him becoming. But he’s so much more to her than she wanted him to be and it’s scary. She hugs him tight when they’re off in the Wasteland and tells him she’s never going to let anything happen to him and she knows she’s lying through her _teeth_ and so does he because he whimpers and sticks his snout under her chin and nuzzles until she’s breathing evenly. She decides to love him as fiercely as she can and prepares for when she loses him. She thinks Pup understands.

     What Addie doesn’t get is why they all do these things for her. Codsworth she understands; he’d been hers and Nate’s before the war. Pup she understands too; he’s a fiercely loyal dog who picked her to follow. But everyone else…she doesn’t know why she’s special. She’s just another survivor living in the Wastes. Sure she’d helped them out in one way or another but that’s no reason for them to really stick around. She’s just the means to an end, she’d never meant to be the end for them.


	2. Q&A

    The first opportunity Addie gets to ask is when Hancock is too high to really understand the question. Or so she hopes.

    “Why do we all follow you?” He repeats.

    “Yeah. I mean…I know I helped you in some way but. I never expected to have a whole slew of people wanting to support me. I’m not. I don’t deserve. This.” Addie lets out a billowing sigh and rolls onto her side with one arm under her head to face him.

    Hancock takes a moment to stare up at the moon contemplatively before propping himself up onto his elbow to watch her. She jolts when he traces a finger down her free hand.

    “First of all, you deserve more than this hunk of shit world can ever give you.”

    Addie opens her mouth to protest but Hancock merely puts his hand on her shoulder and shushes her.

    “You have saved so many people, Adrian. And you think that that’s just what anyone would do. But you come from a different time, where neighbors helped neighbors out. In this time, in this place, you protect your own and you don’t stick your neck out for anyone else. It’s just how things work.” Hancock shrugs and picks up a lock of hair that had fallen into Addie’s face. He places it back on top of her head and his mouth falls open into an ‘o’ shape.

    “Your hair is so soft. How.”

    Addie smiles at him as he continues to pet her scalp. He mutters about Smoothskins and missing hair while she shuts her eyes and enjoys the contact. They stay on the roof to the Tower, four stories up, for another couple hours before Hancock tells her they need to lay down on something more comfortable or his bones might start falling off of him. She ends the night with a kiss to his cheek and a soft “goodnight.”

    After that she feels…lighter. She starts noticing the reactions to her willingness to lend a hand and she starts feeling the gratitude she gets without a bitter taste in the back of her mouth.

    Addie decides to ask MacCready next, if not for validation than an honest judge of his character. She doesn’t know why he continues to follow her. She stopped paying him his normal rate at least a month ago.

    “What kinda question is that? Why do I follow you?”

    “I’m genuinely curious. You haven’t accepted your normal payment in a while and I wanted to see if you just forgot or…what.”

    They’re patching up a hole in the wall of the first floor of the Tower. MacCready hands her the Wonderglue and she holds a metal panel in one hand and distributes the glue in the other. They both apply pressure to the panel. MacCready looks thoughtful.

    “You inspire me.”

    It’s so blunt and nice it almost makes Addie drop the piece of metal.

    “I what?”

    “You heard me,” MacCready looks down at his shoes, flustered, “You make me want to be better than just some mercenary who gets paid to kill people. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I could still do that. But killing for a cause, and killing to keep good people safe is much preferable.”

    Addie nods slowly, digesting his words.

    “And Addie, I hope you don’t think I’m just around for the paycheck.”

    Addie takes a moment to collect her thoughts. She tells herself that pang of guilt that hits her is understandable with their first impressions. She almost believes it. 

    “For a while you were.”

    MacCready nods.

    “I was. But then I actually got to know you and your ragtag group of heroes and I. I saw something. In you, in them and. I don’t know, I guess I just want to see this through. I want the Commonwealth to feel more like home. For everybody.”

    Addie startles. It’s almost out of character for him but she knows he’s thinking of Duncan and Lucy.

    “Hey.” She says.

    MacCready looks up from the ground and she makes sure the panel is stuck enough before pulling him into a bone crushing hug. Addie has to stand on her tippy toes to wrap him in her embrace but she endures the pull in her calves.

    “They would be so proud of you, MacCready. You’ve come so far from the man who just saw a dead body and a pile of caps. It’s been, what? Two months? And already you’ve helped me so much.”

    Addie pulls away from the hug but still holds him at arm’s length, grasping tightly to his shoulders. He gapes at her.

    “ _I’ve_ helped _you_? You made sure the Gunners would never come after me again and you helped me find a cure for my sick son! You’ve done everything for me, Adrian!”

    Addie smiles and opens her mouth. MacCready talks over her.

    “It’s not what anyone would do, Addie. It’s just what you would do.”

    Addie can’t say why that warms her heart as much as it does, but she gives him a small smile and leads him back into the tower to cover the hole from the inside too.

    “Thanks Mac.”

    “No Addie, thank _you_. But…did that sate your curiosity? Are we good?”

    Addie pauses in the doorway and turns around.

    “I think it was more than I thought it would be. And of course we’re good, Mac. Even when I was paying you we were good.”

    MacCready goes a little pink in the face but he nods at her.

    “Good.”

    She starts to sense a theme when she asks Cait next. She and Cait just finished sparring and they’re cleaning up in the Tower’s bathroom when she blurts out, “Why did you come with me, in the beginning?”

    Cait squints at her as she soaks her hands in the sink. Addie leans over the side of the bath to look at her. Their eyes meet in the mirror.

    “I reckon I didn’t have a choice, did I?”

    Addie nods. She’d expected as much.

    “And after?”

    Cait rolls her eyes and drains the sink. She’s pulling her sweaty clothes off and setting them next to Addie’s when she finally answers.

    “You saved my life, Addie. Ain’t a soul who would have risked their hide like you did for a dirty addict like me.”

    Cait sinks into the other side of the tub, the water sloshing around Addie’s chest. The first time she’d done it Addie had leapt from the bath with a scandalized yelp. Cait had laughed and called her an “absolute nutter” as she explained that it conserved water. Addie just thinks Cait likes fucking with her.

    “You’re not just your addiction, Cait. You’re so much more than that.”

    Cait laughs and sticks her foot out besides Addie’s thigh. She bends the other knee and leans against it.

    “And only you would have seen it, my dear.”

    The pet name catches Addie off guard and Cait sees it. She nudges Addie’s thigh and grins.

    “You’re one gal of gold, you know that? I’ll bet Tommy saw it too. As much as that arse said he didn’t care, I think he was just too proud to say he did.”

    Addie smiles softly, staring into the water and idly rubbing Cait’s foot.

    “Ah! If ya keep doing that I won’t let ya leave till we’re soft and pruny!”

    Addie snorts, yanking Cait’s ankle.

    “Not that a bath would hurt every now and then, Cait.”

    Cait inhales a mock offended gasp and splashes Addie in the face.

    “I’ll have you know that I bathe regularly!”

    “Yeah? Tell that to the bugs that fly around your head!”

    Cait takes this as permission to pull Addie into the biggest splash fight the Tower has ever seen.

    With three of her companions already rekindling her faith in herself, she goes into Piper’s room a couple days later feeling less like she wants to sleep for another 200 years.

    Piper is bent over her desk writing. She’s idly writing, like she felt she should write something, versus the fervent writing like she has a story and she has to get it out before the news gets old. Addie surprises herself by recognizing the difference.

    “Hey Pipes.”

    Piper finishes her sentence and looks up.

    “Hey Blue, what’s up.”

    “Preston thinks we should make posters so people can find out where they can join the Minutemen. Would you mind helping us out?”

    Piper bites her lip and glances down at her paper.

    “I kinda wanted to finish this first…”

    “Oh yeah! No rush! It was just an idea. I think Preston wanted me to do it anyway so just, let me know when you’re ready.”

    “Alright. I’ll let you know.” Piper turns back to her paper and starts writing again. Addie stands in the doorway for another long moment.

    “What are you writing?”

    “Huh?”

    Piper doesn’t even look up from the paper. She just mutters under her breath and sticks her tongue out.

    Addie gives her a fond look and finally enters the room, the door swinging shut behind her. The room is small compared to Addie’s own room, which takes up the entire top floor (she was encased in a tiny pod for 200 years she deserves a big place to sleep). It was simply a desk, a bed and a trunk until Addie had helped Piper install a small shelf above the bed when they finally finished the Tower a couple months ago and she’s filled it with books and knick knacks her sister and Addie have given her. Addie notes the addition of a cat painting she’d given Piper as a joke a few weeks before and the tiny robot action figure Hancock had attempted to put together drunk that sat mangled and unidentifiable on her desk.

    “Sorry Blue. I was actually writing to you.”

    Addie splutters, her hand flying up to cover her mouth.

    “Me?”

    “Yeah!” Piper beams and shuffles the papers in front of her. “I’m usually no good at fiction but I had a story I wanted to write you that Nat helped me come up with when I went to visit her.”

    Addie is thrown by that but she recovers quickly.

    “You know Nat is welcome to live with us in Sanctuary, right? She doesn’t have to stay in Diamond City all by herself. There’s Danse’s room that he never uses downstairs.”

    Piper waves her hand dismissively.

    “Nat knows how to take care of herself. I’m not gone that often and if she wasn’t there, the mayor would have that printing press scrapped for parts.”

    “If you’re sure.”

    Piper gives her a thumbs up.

    “Oh yeah.”

    Piper goes back to writing and Addie watches her work. She wonders what she and Nat could possibly put together that would be so important but she’ll let Piper get it all out first. She’s definitely curious.

    “Well I’ll let you be, then.” Addie begins to turn towards the door and she gets as far as turning the knob when Piper speaks again.

    “I followed you because you interest me.”

    Addie doesn't turn around. Her heart picks up a little. She feels unreasonably nervous.

    “I heard you and Cait in the bathroom a few days ago. And Codsworth lamenting your mess afterwards. I figured you were going to ask me eventually.”

    “Yeah.” It's so delayed Addie is pretty sure Piper is smiling at her back.

    “Now I follow you because I can see the revolution in your eyes.”

    Addie finally gets the door open and turns. She feels like there’s a question mark above her head. And a jackrabbit in her chest.

    Piper laughs, “I mean that you’re going to turn the Commonwealth inside out! You’ve already done so much Blue, even just protecting your people. I can tell with this Tower and the resurgence of the Minutemen that you’re a force to be reckoned with. You’re going to save the Commonwealth from itself.”

    It’s high praise coming from anyone, but from Piper, the wordsmith herself, it makes Addie’s eyes fill with unshed tears. She looks up, her bottom lip wobbling.

    “I’m trying.” She tells Piper shakily and Piper’s expression crumbles. She’s dodging around the side of the desk and barreling into Addie’s arms with a soft exclamation of “Blue!”

    Addie shudders in Piper’s embrace but refuses to cry. She’s already cried once in this new lifetime. She refuses to let her emotions get the best of her again.

    “Blue oh my gosh!”

    “Thank you, Piper. It means a lot coming from you.”

    “Of course! I meant every word. You can quote me on that.”

    Addie laughs and buries her face in Piper’s neck.

    “I don’t know what I’m doing.” She admits into Piper’s collarbone.

    “I don’t think anybody really does, Blue. I think they’re just really good at faking it.”

    They stand in silence, Addie sniffling softly against Piper’s neck and Piper with her face pressed into Addie’s hair. Addie pulls away after a couple minutes and gives her a small reassuring smile when Piper touches her cheek gently.

    “Am I good at pretending?”

    Piper grins.

    “I think you’re too good sometimes.”

    Addie swoops in to press a chaste kiss against her cheek that Piper leans into. As Addie is pulling away though, she grabs Addie’s face in her hands, making her look Piper in the eyes.

    “You do so much for us and we’re all so grateful Blue. Please know that.”

    Piper brushes their lips together for the briefest of moments before patting Addie’s shoulder and walking back to her desk.

    “I’ll let you know when I have time to help with those posters!”

    Addie knows a dismissal when she hears one. She walks out and mechanically closes Piper’s door. She stands outside for an unreasonably long time with her fingers pressed to her lips. Even though it's only been four months since her rebirth into the Commonwealth she doesn’t remember the last time she felt such a thrill of pleasure from something as simple as a kiss. Then she looks down at her wedding ring guiltily and hurries up to her room. Nate would be appalled.


End file.
